


Status Affected

by scrods



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Gen, M/M, Major plot spoilers, Pointless fluff, sort of gen/pre-slash, spoilers for december
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 17:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2032839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrods/pseuds/scrods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following a major battle, Souji takes care of a very exhausted Yosuke. </p>
<p>Major plot spoilers for December!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Status Affected

**Author's Note:**

> (quite possibly the dumbest title I’ve ever come up with) (and it doesn’t even have anything to do with status effects! hooray!)  
> Incredibly unoriginal, self-indulgent trash. Forgive me.

Yosuke woke up to the clashing feelings of gentle warmth and teeth-gritting soreness enveloping his body. Deeming the effort of opening his eyes to be too much, he dazedly tuned into his other senses to take in his environment. He seemed to be laying down on a bed or some kind of soft surface, noticing a too-hot flannel blanket covering half his body, probably haphazardly thrown aside. In fact, he felt too hot everywhere—he was sweating, he realized, his T-shirt uncomfortably damp and twisted around his torso. He felt sick and he hurt everywhere, a dull ache that seemed to spread across every inch of his skin. He could only pick up on very low light behind his eyelids, and it was almost completely silent. Almost—he could just barely make out the soft, steady sound of someone’s breathing.

At this point, emerging out of his sleepy dream-like state, curiosity won Yosuke over and he cracked open his heavy lids to the sight of Souji’s room, clean and small and dimly lit.

There, in a rather uncomfortable-looking desk chair, sat Souji, slumped over with his eyes closed tensely. Yosuke took in the sight of him and furrowed his brows, shifting himself upward slightly (and wincing at the pain) to get a better angle.

He opened his mouth and closed it again, not wanting to wake him but also kind of really wanting to wake him. Huffing, he hesitated before muttering a soft “Souji?”

That certainly did the trick—Souji shot up in his chair and blinked himself into full awareness before settling a rather intense stare on Yosuke.

Souji sighed in relief and let his shoulders fall as he breathed, “Fucking hell, Yosuke. I was worried.”

Yosuke paused and kind of looked around. “Uh,” he said intelligently, frowning to himself. Souji almost never cursed like that—what was going on?

There was a moment where they just kind of looked at each other, Souji exasperated but relieved, Yosuke confused as all hell and feeling as though he was missing out on some crucial detail.

“At the risk of sounding completely cliché,” Yosuke started. “What happened?”

Souji raised his eyebrows. “You… Do you really not remember anything?” Yosuke stared dumbly back at him. Souji closed his eyes and began massaging his temples. “Does the name Adachi ring a bell? Ameno-sagiri maybe?”

Yosuke’s eyes widened to the size of plates. “Oh… Oh, _shit_.”

Souji let out a short, ironic laugh. “Yeah.”

Yosuke remembered. They’d trekked through the twists and turns of Magatsu Inaba to find Adachi and they’d deafeated him triumphantly… only to watch this, this _thing_ rise out of his body and face them with a force ten times stronger. Ameno-sagiri, the orchestrator of it all.

Everything was a huge blur, but Yosuke remembered being hit repeatedly by the strongest spells he’d experienced yet and being knocked unconscious more than just a few times. Somehow, _somehow_ , the team had been able to overcome it, but certainly not without being pummeled worse than ever before.

Yosuke seemed to remember venomously chewing out Adachi after the ordeal, barely able to contain his bitter anger. He vaguely recalled dragging him out of the TV world with the others and watching as he was taken away on a stretcher. He even sort of remembered going outside and seeing the sun for the first time in what felt like forever, trying to execute some lame group high five with his friends, giving Souji an exhausted but so, so genuine grin, looking at him and not being able to look away…

But that was it.

“Um…” he swallowed, trying to bring himself back to the present moment. “So… we won, right?”

Souji nodded with a growing smile. “We won. It’s over.”

Yosuke wanted to rejoice, tackle Souji in a hug, cry and laugh and feel the first glimpse of relief he had in a long, long while. But something still wasn’t clear.

“Okay, that’s great, seriously, it is, but… what happened after that? How’d I end up here, laying in your bed, feeling like I was run over by a bus?”

Souji’s smile fell and he raised his eyebrows, seeming surprised and confused himself. “Oh. Right.”

Yosuke rolled his eyes at him. “Don’t tell me I was actually run over by a bus,” he joked, and Souji gave him that little half-smile of his.

“No, but I… I was a little worried that you were dying there,” he answered with an odd chuckle. Yosuke couldn’t tell if he was joking or not, and Souji’s face was always impossible to read. “Yeah, uh, you kind of collapsed in the middle of the street after the whole thing. Nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Yosuke looked at Souji and opened his eyes wide. “Oh...” He laughed awkwardly. “Well then.”

Souji scratched the back of his unusally disheveled head of hair. “Everyone kind of freaked out a little. Kanji helped me carry you back here. I told the others to head home, but believe me, that took a fight… They were really worried.” Yosuke squinted and opened his mouth, but Souji cut in before he could speak, “Yes. Even Chie. But don’t tell her I told you that.”

The two laughed a little and Yosuke flushed warmly. He certainly didn’t want to concern them, but it felt pretty good knowing that they cared that much. That wasn’t something he was used to in a group of friends. Sure, his friends here picked on him and got tired of his antics sometimes, but they genuinely gave a shit, and that felt good.

“Anyway,” Souji continued, “I got you settled here, and you’ve been out for hours. I think it’s around 2 AM by now.”

Yosuke’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously? Shit, my parents—”

“I already called to tell them you were staying the night. You should’ve heard my uncle before—even he was concerned. When I called him about it at the hospital, he told me to keep you here for the night and call a cab to drive you to the hospital if your fever got much worse. Before this, I didn’t think he had a sympathetic bone in his body for you,” Souji smiled wryly.

“Wait, my fever? Jesus, what happened to me?” Yosuke frowned.

“Ameno-sagiri hit you pretty hard. Harder than the rest, that’s for sure. It must’ve really taken a toll on you.” Souji grimaced. “Damn, you had me worried. You were shaking and sweating up a storm before.” He trailed off for a moment, biting at his thumb nail. “Thank God your fever’s gone down. And you finally woke up,” he added, looking at Yosuke with an unfamiliar look of anxiety on his face.

Yosuke stared back, feeling strangely frozen. A moment of silent understanding passed between the two and Yosuke looked down in embarrassment, breaking their gaze. “Um. Well… thanks for… you know, taking care of me… and stuff.” ( _Jesus Christ how awkward could he get_ )

Souji nodded in acknowledgement. “Don’t worry about it. Like anyone could have kept me away,” he laughed quietly, causing Yosuke to blush all over again. “Hey, we should get some rest. You’re far from 100 percent and you've still got to be tired.”

“Are you kidding? _You_ must be the exhausted one at this point.” He laughed and Souji shrugged, smiling. “…But yeah, you’re right.”

Yosuke paused. Feeling his heart pound a bit, he hesitantly scooted over in bed to make room for his friend. Souji seemed a little surprised, but covered it up, turning to conceal his light blush. After a second, he crawled in and made himself comfortable next to Yosuke, giving him a meaningful smile that made him feel kind of sick-- this time in a good way. Yosuke swallowed and smiled back, and the two closed their eyes and slowly drifted into a much-needed sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Just realized this has essentially the same “souji-takes-care-of-injured/sick-yosuke-after-an-expedition-to-the-tv-world” theme of my last fic oops i am Highly Creative


End file.
